"Modern Islamist Movements provides a clear and accessible examination of the history, beliefs and rationale of Islamist Groups and their grievances with the West and governments within the majority-Muslim world, while examining some of these groups' visions for a global Islamic empire. A clear and accessible text that examines the history, beliefs and rationale for violence emerging from Islamist movements, while examining some of these groups' visions for a global Islamic empire. Examines Islamist grievances against the West and modern governments in the majority Muslim world, while providing an overview of Islam's relations with the West from the period of the Crusades to the modern age. Discusses the historic development of Islamism in Egypt, the West Bank and Gaza, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Explains classic Islamic understandings of jihad and Bin Laden's, al-Qaida's, and other Islamists interpretations of this concept. Offers an historical account of the formative relationship between al-Qaida, other Islamists, and Islamic intellectual trends beginning in the eighteenth century. Appropriate for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as interested general readers."--Publisher's website

This Festschrift consists of twelve chapters first delivered as papers forming the foundations of these chapters at a special conference in honor of Professor Humphreys, which took place in October 2007 at the College of St. Benedict, St. Joseph, Minnesota. These chapters were written as a tribute to Professor Humphreys by twelve of his former graduate students and reflect the broad chronological and disciplinary scope of Professor Humphreys teaching and erudition. In geographical range, they stretch from Morocco to the Punjab; in time from the ancient Near East to the present; and in approach from hard-core political analysis to post-modernist and post-colonialist discourse. The chapters by Lindsay, Sizgorich, and Bigelow reflect on the persistent power of sacred figures in Islamic societies and the apparently disparate ways in which these figures manifest sanctity, as well as the complex political roles they play both ideologically and in everyday life. Cory's chapter on the ruined al-Bad palace of the Sa d sultans in Marrakesh is illustrated by exquisite color photos and diagrams, and Stockdale shows how art transmutes the tangible present into the mystical realm of an imagined past. The contributions of Jones, Hoffman, Keaney, and Armajani explore the ways in which Muslims have constructed their past and how Muslims draw on the past in order to define who they are as Muslims, while Khalid discusses the issues as Muslim reformers and modernists in Bukhara struggled to build their societies along lines both modern and Islamic, between the end of Czarist rule and the imposition of the Soviet system. Finally, there is the world of power politics to reconcile with the lofty ideals of justice that are explored in the contributions of Howes (in examining a medieval Islamic polity that strove to define earthly rule in transcendent terms) and Darling, who explores the metaphors of social harmony. The final chapter, Thoughts in Retrospect by Professor Humphreys, stands as an eloquent commentary on the contributions by his former students

Dynamic Islam analyzes the lives and works of four of the most influential liberal diaspora Muslim intellectuals of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries—Fatima Mernissi, Leila Ahmed, Fazlur Rahman, and Mohammed Arkoun. These prolific scholars are among the first generation of Muslims writing in Western languages who have intentionally directed their works toward audiences in the West, as well as the Muslim world. Jon Armajani examines the way these cutting-edge scholars have interpreted the Quran, Hadith, and Islamic history as they have constructed their visions for Islam in the modern world. Armajani vividly describes their perspectives on women and gender, veiling, Islamic revivalism, Islam and democracy, and Islamic mysticism. The volume also situates their ideas with respect to conservatively minded western Muslims and Islamic revivalists.

The work produced by prominent North Dakota-born potter Bresnahan is an expressive and original synthesis of centuries-old craft and a truly modern aesthetic. Apprenticed to Nakazato Takashi, an innovative 13th-generation Karatsu-style potter, Bresnahan discovered much about the intersection of pottery and other traditional art forms (e.g., the tea ceremony), which is evident in his work. Welch (curator of Japanese and Korean art, Minneapolis Institute of Arts) illustrates the potter's compelling story with a mixture of journal notes, recent interviews, and full-color photographs of pottery by Bresnahan and by some of his friends and mentors. The book also features schematic drawings of Bresnahan's extraordinary kiln, based on the traditional noborigama kiln but containing many radical design innovations. The potter's annual seven-day-long firing produces an original and expressive style of earthy, organic forms with warm, unusual colors. Bresnahan has long been supported by St. John's College and Abbey in Minnesota, from his early years as a student to his current status as artist-in-residence. The book describes how his commitment to ecology, local materials, and collective labor and the pottery's contribution to the self-sustainability of the abbey's Benedictine monks have blossomed into a highly regarded and vital community asset. (Library Journal review, March 15, 2002)

“The most disastrous famine in recent Chinese history took place between 1876 and 1879, afflicting all five provinces of North China [Shantung, Chihli, Honan, Shensi, and Shansi] and claiming no fewer than nine and a half million human lives [….] The hunger, pestilence, and violence brought about by the famine presented an overwhelming challenge to government and foreign relief efforts [.…] Despite these obstacles, however, Timothy Richard of the Baptist Missionary Society succeeded in organizing an effective, systematic scheme of relief distribution in several districts of Shantung and Shansi. His work on the scene in turn stimulated the foreign community to organize the China Famine Relief Fund Committee, and his method of rendering aid set the pattern of foreign almsgiving which did much to ease the suffering of thousands [….]

“This study analyzes Richard’s role in the North China famine and evaluates his contribution to the relief effort. It concentrates on Richard’s initial distribution attempts in Shantung, 1876-1877, and his more extensive activities in Shansi, 1877-1879. By comparing Richard’s relief measures with those of the Ch’ing government as well as with those of the foreign distributors supported by the China Famine Relief Fund Committee, the study attempts to describe the various approaches to the problem of famine relief and to illuminate the many difficulties encountered by Chinese and foreigners in the relief work.

“However, it is not only Richard’s relief program that must be considered. The impact of the famine on the subsequent course of Richard’s missionary career forms an important part of the whole famine story. For Richard emerged from the calamity convinced that he must urge China’s leaders to eradicate the basic causes of famine and similar natural disasters and to elevate the physical as well as the spiritual welfare of the rural masses. In the years during and immediately following the Great Famine, Richard evolved the basis of a broad scheme of national reform which aimed at China’s modernization for the purpose of rooting out the poverty and misery of Chinese life. The study will assess the early reform proposals which Richard put forth between 1876 and 1884, the year he returned to England on furlough. The groundwork of his reform ideas will be examined along with his actual attempts to promote national reform and economic developments, from his first conversations with Chinese officials to his decision to appeal to the Chinese literati at large through the Chinese-language press.”